September 21, 2001

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Hispanic Heritage Month recognizes the contributions and impact
of the Hispanic community on the United States. Until the fateful
day of September 11, 2001 the last time the continental U.S. had
been attacked was during the Mexican-American War of 1845.

The act of war would not necessarily
be consider a contribution to the development of the U.S. but
the resulting signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February
2, 1848, in the Villa of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was perhaps the greatest
single act between the U.S. and Mexico. Under the treaty, Mexico
ceded to the United States upper California and New Mexico (including
Arizona) and recognized U.S. claims over Texas, with the Rio Grande
as its southern boundary. The United Staes in turn paid Mexico
$15 million assumed the claims of American citizens against Mexico,
recognized prior land grants in the Southwest and offered citizenship
to any Mexicans residing in the area.

A map of the United States and Mexico (Mexican territory shaded
in color) before the war.

Tensions and views that led to the Mexican War.

There were many tensions between the United States and Mexico
that led to war, mainly on the issues of land and expansion. Mexico
knew that they had to protect their territory from American settlers
who where illegally taking up the land and violating Mexican laws.
But after the annexation of Texas and with Mexico's presidential
instability, Mexico was vulnerable.

When the United States annexed Texas in 1845, the boundaries
of the new state were not specified and were left for future interpretation
and discussion with Mexico.

United States President James K. Polk wanted territorial expansion
to the west and he encouraged expansion. Both Mexico and the United
States had different reasons to go to war but they both agreed
on the treaty to stop the war.

President Polk saw the coming war with Mexico as an opportunity
for expansion. Meanwhile in Mexico there was presidential instability,
almost every president since Mexico's 1821 War of Independence
up until the Mexican War, had been overthrown. In 1845 President
Jose Joaquin Herrera rejected American overtures to negotiate
the Texas dispute for fear he would provoke a rebellion by seeming
too conciliatory. Polk used this rejection as a key incident to
justify the declaration of war.

Since the boundaries of Texas were unclear, a skirmish took
place between the American and Mexican Troops on the north bank
of the Rio Grande in 1846. Polk claimed that the United States
was being invaded.

Most of the conflicts and tensions were about the boundary
of Texas which was unclear and both Mexico and the United States
kept getting into each others way. Land Grant maps drawn by Stephen
F. Austin in 1929, 1833, and 1836 show that the Nueces River and
not the Rio Grande, was the boundary between Texas and Mexico.
The idea of the Rio Grande as a boundary dates back to the Louisiana
Purchase that supposedly defines Texas as extending to the Rio
Grande. So each country had a different understanding of where
the boundary was. Texas wanted the Rio Grande as the boundary
and Mexico proposed to give up it's claim of territory between
the Sabine and Nueces river.

Mexico was defending their rights to their lands and the United
States was mainly thinking towards the expansion of their territory.

The creating and signing of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

The treaty was created to stop the costly war and to gain more
territory for the United States, but the treaty was the last stage
of negotiations for peace.

During the first stage, the United
States stood to gain a great deal and Mexico had little to gain
by starting peace negotiations. On August 22, 1847 the U.S. Army
was on the outskirts of Mexico City and a more formal and open
stage of negotiations was established between General Scott and
General Santa Anna, an armistice. There were many negotiations
and no one agreed on any of the demands of each side. Pressure
was added by General Scott a day after the armistice ended, as
he marched into Mexico City and fought the bloodiest battle of
the war at Molina del Rey.

On September 13 they captured Chapultepec and entered the city.
Santa Anna fled with his army and resigned as President, the city
surrendered on November 4. This just proved the instability of
the presidency and the Mexican government and some of the pressures
that persuaded Mexico into accepting the treaty.

The final stages of the compromise, were from the end of the
armistice, on September 7, 1847, to February 2, 1848, when the
final draft of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. After
many financial and political pressures the commissioners met with
Nicholas P. Trist in the Villa of Guadalupe Hidalgo and signed
the treaty.

The treaty gave the United States more land and an opportunity
of expansion. Mexico was guaranteed $15 million dollars and that
their citizens, on the new American territory, to their land and
citizenship. The treaty basically guaranteed the peaceful evacuation
of American troops and the conflicts between both sides to be
resolved within the stipulations in the treaty.

When the U.S. Senate received the treaty it did not accept
articles 9 and made some changes to the article but the Senate
completely took out article 10 and the article did not appear
in the final treaty. The Protocol of Queretaro was not even mentioned
in the final treaty (at the end of this article are the deleted
article 10 and the Protocol of Queretaro). The treaty mainly
benefited the United States of America because they ended up paying
less money for more valuable lands which were abundant in natural
resources which helped them accelerate their industrial growth
into the twentieth century.

The Mexican War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were pivotal
in creating new boundaries and problems as well as setting in
motion forces that influenced the histories of both countries.

Articles eight and nine of the treaty granted American citizenship
and property rights to those Mexican citizens who do not elect
to remain Mexican citizens. The articles affected about 100,000
Mexicans including Hispanicized and nomadic Indians.

The treaties provisions regarding citizenship and property
were complicated by legislative and Judicial (Supreme Court) interpretations.
Only a few people chose to remain Mexican citizens when compared
to the many that became U.S. citizens. After the treaty had been
ratified and put in effect, the state constitutional convention
agreed that the Mexicans remaining were not American citizens
but required some further action by Congress to make them United
States citizens.

In the People vs. de la Guerra, the status of Mexican citizens
is now defined. Basically the United States Supreme Court granted
citizenship to Mexican National and thus ended the struggle of
many Californianos who were trying to keep their citizenship and
property.

Despite countless number of violations of the internationally
recognized document, the treaty remains in force, according to
historian Richard Gris-wold del Castillo. "The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo has remained a viable part of the U.S. system
of laws, having been interpreted again and again by the federal
and state courts... the treaty has not effectively protected the
civil and property rights of Mexican Americans but it did serve
to fuel the political movement of the 1960s and 1970s," wrote
Griswold del Castillo in "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo:
A Legacy of Conflict."

"In July of 1980, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the
International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) meeting at Fort Belnap,
Montana, a resolution was introduced by native delegates to support
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Mexican American rights of
self determination," writes Griswold. The International Indian
Treaty Council is dedicated to working for rights of the native
peoples throughout the western hemisphere and has been recognized
by the United Nations since 1977.

****

The text of Article IX was modified by the U.S. Senate, and
Article X was deleted in its entirety. The original text of Article
X appears below. The Protocol of Queretaro, also included
below, clarified what was meant by the U.S. Senate modifications
of the original treaty.

ARTICLE X

All grants of land made by the Mexican Government or by the
component authorities, in territories previously appertaining
to Mexico, and remaining for the future within the limits of the
United States, shall be respected as valid, to the same extent
that the same grants would be valid, if the said territories had
remained within the limits of Mexico. But the grantees of lands
in Texas, put in possession thereof, who, by reason of the circumstances
of the country since the beginning of the troubles between Texas
and the Mexican Government, may have been prevented from fulfilling
all the conditions of their grants, shall be under the obligation
to fulfill said conditions within the periods limited in the same
respectively; such periods to be now counted from the date of
exchange of ratifications of this treaty: in default of which
the said grants shall not be obligatory upon the State of Texas,
in virtue of the stipulations contained in this Article.

The foregoing stipulation in regard to grantees of land in
Texas, is extended to all grantees of land in the territories
aforesaid, elsewhere than Texas, put in possession under such
grants; and, in default of the fulfillment of the conditions of
any such grant, within the new period, which, as is above stipulated,
begins with the day of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty,
the same shall be null and void.

PROTOCOL OF QUERETARO

In the city of Queretaro on the twenty sixth of the month of
May eighteen hundred and forty-eight at a conference between Their
Excellencies Nathan Clifford and Ambrose H. Sevier Commissioners
of the United States of America, with full powers from their Government
to make to the Mexican Republic suitable explanations in regard
to the amendments which the Senate and Government of the said
United States have made in the treaty of peace, friendship, limits
and definitive settlement between the two Republics, signed in
Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February of the present
year, and His Excellency Don Luis de la Rosa, Minister of Foreign
Affairs of the Republic of Mexico, it was agreed, after adequate
conversation respecting the changes alluded to, to record in the
present protocol the following explanations which Their aforesaid
Excellencies the Commissioners gave in the name of their Government
and in fulfillment of the Commission conferred upon them near
the Mexican Republic.

First.

The American Government by suppressing the IXth article of
the Treaty of Guadalupe and substituting the III article of the
Treaty of Louisiana did not intend to diminish in any way what
was agreed upon by the aforesaid article IXth in favor of the
inhabitants of the territories ceded by Mexico. Its understanding
that all of that agreement is contained in the IIId article of
the Treaty of Louisiana. In consequence, all the privileges and
guarantees, civil, political and religious, which would have been
possessed by the inhabitants of the ceded territories, if the
IXth article of the Treaty had been retained, will be enjoyed
by them without any difference under the article which has been
substituted.

Second.

The American Government, by suppressing the Xth article of
the Treaty of Guadalupe did not in any way intend to annul the
grants of lands made by Mexico in the ceded territories. These
grants, notwithstanding the suppression of the article of the
Treaty, preserve the legal value which they may possess; and the
grantees may cause their legitimate titles to be acknowledged
before the American tribunals.

Conformably to the law of the United States, legitimate titles
to every description of property personal and real, existing in
the ceded territories, are those which were legitimate titles
under the American law in California and New Mexico up to the
13th of May 1846, and in Texas up to the 2d March 1836.

Third.

The Government of the United States by suppressing the concluding
paragraph of article XIIth of the Treaty, did not intend to deprive
the Mexican Republic of the free and unrestrained faculty of ceding,
conveying or transferring at any time (as it may judge best) the
sum of the twelfe [sic] millions of dollars which the same
Government of the United States is to deliver in the places designated
by the amended article.

And these explanations having been accepted by the Minister
of Foreign Affairs of the Mexican Republic, he declared in name
of his Government that with the understanding conveyed by them,
the same Government would proceed to ratify the Treaty of Guadalupe
as modified by the Senate and Government of the United States.
In testimony of which their Excellencies the aforesaid Commissioners
and the Minister have signed and sealed in quintuplicate the present
protocol.